“Any luck?” asked Vilo as she stepped into the flight deck of the runabout Gondwana, one of Atlantis’ older, but still highly capable Danube-class runabouts.

The man she spoke to was staring at a monitor as if he could will a solution into existence by merely concentrating hard enough. The circuit diagrams could have been the next best thing to eldritch runes, scrawled by madmen and women, but luckily the man trying to decipher something from them was Atlantis’ chief engineer and even the Romulan Republic had a healthy respect for the skill, ingenuity and ‘under pressure inventiveness’ Starfleet engineers could summon forth when need be.

“No, not yet,” Lieutenant Commander Ra-tesh’mi Velan uttered as he waved a hand at the vacant station next to his. “I set up an alarm if we find anything, but no luck so far.”

“I meant in understanding why the warp core decided to have its…episode.” She sat herself on the edge of the console Ra was using, looking down at him and when he looked up she offered the covered cup of coffee she had brought forth with her.

Gondwana, and all of Atlantis’ runabounts, were out scouring an impressively large field of space, stretching nearly a quarter-lightyear, in an attempt to locate anything that might have survived the ship’s warp core being ejected and subsequently detonating. It had taken awhile before Ra had admitted he needed hard evidence to nail the matter down, but from there only a few hours to organise all of the ship’s small craft, enough crews desperate to do anything besides sit around doing nothing, and get the search started.

Ra had punished himself by assigning himself to the mission. Vilo had assigned herself citing it was an opportunity to observe and understand Starfleet smallcraft extended operations. Captain Theodoras had, upon hearing that, merely smiled, winked and suggested ‘discretion’.

This was not an unfair comment on the captain’s behalf and her intent until Ra’s determination to resolve the issue of ‘why?’ had dominated all of his thoughts. Obsession which she found endearing in the Efrosian man. If only she could redirect a modicum of his attention, if just for a few hours. But it wasn’t to be, save for a few glances she caught and enjoyed.

She’d merely dominate his attention when this was all over.

“No, nothing there either,” Ra admitted as he took the cup, sniffed at the small opening and then sipped at it as if she’d brought him the nectar of the gods. Coffee, a human delicacy that Ra enjoyed, was a vile drink she was determined never to suffer again, but she wouldn’t deny him its taste if it brought such a simple joy.

“The computer was sending the correct orders from Engineering. The sub-processors at both injector ports were receiving them correctly and issuing them. But the antimatter injector simply wouldn’t close and started opening with each reissue.” Ra sighed, took a sip, then continued. “The deuterium injector has a secondary line to the antimatter injector, to make sure they’re both feeding in at the same rate and ensure a stable reaction. So when the antimatter injector decided to play up, the deuterium injector got caught in the loop.”

“Sounds like a design flaw,” Vilo said. “Wouldn’t the issue have mostly been resolved had the deuterium injector closed and just let the reactor assembly flood with antimatter?”

“I…well…yeah,” Ra spluttered out after a few moments of thinking. “But we just didn’t have the time needed to issue the override. The feedback loop certainly didn’t help that’s for sure.”

“So the issue lies somewhere within the antimatter injector and you’re hoping we might find something to indicate what component failed to cause the problem?”

He nodded gently in the affirmative. “I know it’s a long shot, but we’ve got the time to give long shots a chance and otherwise my report to the SCE and the ASDB is going to be ‘something broke’ and they do not like that.”

Vilo couldn’t help the slight chuckle at the potential annoyance of bureaucrats and desk jockeys at such a potential report from Ra. “No, I don’t think they would. Administration personnel tend to be very particular about ensuring that they have proper documentation.”

“Says the first officer,” Ra quipped. “I want to know why this happened. I’m up against a wall with no evidence to say exactly what went wrong. Design flaw? Manufacturing flaw? Some random quirk?”

“Can I make a suggestion? Since you’ve hit a dead end that is.” She waited long enough for him to blink, consider her question and then nod in acceptance. “Focus on something else for a bit. You can’t make any further progress on this issue, so what is the point in continuing to worry about it?”

“I took the search mission because it would give me the time to continue my investigation without distractions.” There was a pause, then she watched as Ra’s eyebrows rose slightly. “Oh…”

“Indeed.”

Such distractions Vilo and Ra both kept to appropriate discretions should one of the junior officers in the runabout’s rear compartment come forward, but she at least had his attention, engaging him in conversation not related to work, at least for a while. They had barely started their turn at monitoring the craft and its sensors as it plodded along its assigned vectors when she had broken him off his fruitless investigation and hours had passed wistfully by before a cheerful little chirp grabbed their attention.

“Found something?” Vilo asked as Ra rose to his feet and closed on the offending console, interrupting a perfectly enlightening conversation on Efrosian facial hair customs.

“No, comms request,” he answered. “From the Pangea.”

“Rrr’s craft, yes?”

“Rrr and all of those ensigns and JGs they shoved onboard. They’ve really taken to this junior officer development thing.” With a tap of commands, the small screen demanding their attention sprang to life with a fresh-faced and perpetually scowling Bajoran woman. “Ensign Linal, how can I help?”

“Afternoon Commander, Commander,” she said with a nod to Vilo. “Lieutenant Rrr’mmm’bal’rrr said I need to deliver a message to you and it needs to be exact.” She took a moment to consult something off-screen. “Found something you lost. Come and collect.”

“Excuse me, Ensign?” Ra asked immediately.

“That’s what the Lieutenant said I should tell you and nothing more sir.”

Attempts at prying more information out of the ensign proved fruitless, Ensign Linal’s stubbornness resistant to the ship’s executive and third officer. But that Rrr had thought it worth pulling such shenanigans meant it was something they needed to see for themselves anyway, so they let the matter drop.

In only a matter of minutes, the Gondwana was dropping out of warp within a mere couple hundred kilometres from the Pangea, impulse engines closing the distance. A speck of light rapidly grew into a vague shape, masking another behind it, but failing as the two craft closed on each other.

“No,” Ra uttered.

“That’s unexpected,” Vilo said as she laid eyes on what was just past the Pangea, cold and dead in the void of space.

“It should have exploded,” Ra continued as a comms request came in and without thinking he opened it.

“Does this make me a salvage merchant now?” Rrr asked with obvious mirth in their voice. “Finding discard bits of starship just floating in space and all.”

“Rrr, I could just about kiss you,” Ra answered, a smile on his face that threatened to explode. “The whole bloody warp core intact.”

“Looks like the power reserves held and it just bled all the remaining reactant mass out. No new fuel meant chamber pressures dropped and then it just emptied itself into space.” Rrr cracked a smile. “Looks like we’ll finally figure out what broke.”

“Does this mean we could reinstall it and get warp power back?” Vilo asked.

“No,” both Ra and Rrr chimed over each other.

“Oh no, no no no,” Ra continued. “Overstressed reactor chamber. I wouldn’t trust that thing as far as I could throw it. But damn straight we’re taking it home with us and figuring out just what the hell went wrong with it.”

“About heading back to the ship,” Rrr piped up over the comms. “Just got a hail from Atlantis while you were heading here. We’re all being asked to stay out here for now if we can. Commander Camargo thinks the locals might have a primitive subspace scanner.”

“What?” Ra blurted.

“Oh, and it gets better. Let me save you reading your messages…”